Netanyahu folds under US pressure, pulls out of West Bank towns before peace talks

Despite his pledge to keep security considerations uppermost in his dealings with the Palestinians, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is buckling under pressure from the US administration aimed at softening Israel up ahead of Middle East peace talks.
This pressure turned Netanyahu’s first official visits to Rome and Paris sour.
He had hoped to outmaneuver the Obama administration’s insistence on a total settlement freeze by winning the support of friendly Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy for a compromise formula, which would be presented as a European-Israel deal.
To achieve this, he promised the Italian and French leaders that Israeli forces would soon be pulled out of West Bank Palestinian towns. But he failed to anticipate that the Obama administration would outflank him and get there first. So his arrival in Rome and Paris was preceded by Italian and French officials parroting the Washington line on a settlement freeze, including East Jerusalem
When he met Berlusconi Monday, June 22, the Israeli prime minister saw that he had already talked to Obama on the phone and promised that the Italian boot would toe the American line.
In Paris, he found the same trap had been laid at the Elysee.
In these circumstances, Netanyahu should never have gone through with his visits to Italy and France. And defense minister Ehud Barak should call off his trip to Washington Monday for the interview with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell which the prime minister postponed. He has little hope of persuading the administration to change its tune or head off the impending clash between his administration and the Obama White House.
Netanyahu’s promise to the Italian and French leaders to pull the IDF out of the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Qalqilya, has meanwhile gone on record, for no gain in Rome in Paris. But he can no longer capitalize on this major concession for a quid pro quo from the Palestinians. The IDF has also been ordered to reduce to the number of checkpoints on the West Bank to 10 active facilities to allow the Palestinians to travel from town to town free of holdups for searches – another concession to US demands.
These concessions are tantamount to the handover of the main West Bank towns to Palestinian security control.
It is the most sweeping redeployment of Israeli security forces since their unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria four years ago as part of Ariel Sharon’s disengagement policy.
To make the gesture palatable to the Israeli public – who have not forgottenthat years of Palestinian suicide bombing attacks from the West Bank were finally stemmed by the IDF presence in terrorist city strongholds – Netanyahu told the army spokesman to announce Thursday, June 25, that the measures were being given a one-week trial run before being finalized.
However, once in place, these measures will be practically impossible to withdraw.
The Obama administration has thus cornered the Netanyahu government into giving away valuable assets to the Palestinians before negotiations have even begun. This diplomatic dexterity has not been displayed in Washington’s dealings with Iran.

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